Contents

Sucked through the nightmare of the Seltsian Void, the starship Traveller emerges at the other side of the black hole into an unknown universe. YOU are the captain of the Traveller and her fate depends on YOU! Will you be able to discover the way back to Earth from the alien peoples and planets you encounter, or will the starship be doomed to roam uncharted space forever?

Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need for this adventure. YOU decide which planets to visit, which dangers to risk and which aliens to fight.[1]

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Starship Traveller is set in the distant future, with the player taking the role of a starship commander whose ship and crew are sucked through a black hole and into an unknown quadrant of space. The player's mission from this point is to find a means to return home, collecting clues from several different planets in pursuit of this goal.

Starship Traveller employs weapons strength (1d6 + 6) and shields for the ship Traveller. It is also the first book in the series to include rules for gun combat.[2]

The player governs statistics for a variety of officers as well as their own character.[3]

stamina can only be restored when the text allows the player to do so, or when the team return to the Traveller at the end of visiting a planet. In this case each member of the visiting team may regain 2 stamina points. This only applies to the original version of the Science, Medical, Engineering, and Security officers. If they die and are replaced by junior officers in the course of the adventure then this two point restoration no longer holds true, as the junior officers cannot join away teams.[4]

Starship Traveller deviates from the Fighting Fantasy norm in a number of ways. It was the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook to feature a science fiction setting, as opposed to the more traditional fantasy, and it was also the first to provide the player with multiple characters - the player is required to keep track of the relevant statistics for several crew members as well as the their own character, the captain. As the book featured extensive travel by starship, it also employed the first vehicle combat system in the series. However a reader can successfully complete the book without ever having to roll dice.

The main body of the adventure is made up of only 340 references rather than the usual 400. Three additional references provide the rules for the various types of combat available in the book. (341) deals with for ship-to-ship combat, (342) deals with hand-to-hand combat and (343) deals with phaser combat. Once combat is successfully concluded the player returns to the referring section.

The book contains many similarities to Star Trek: The Original Series. The crew uses transporter-like devices to visit planets and both they and the starship have weapons like those seen on Star Trek. The organization of the crew is also reminiscent of that used on the television series.

At the time of publication, a mild controversy arose when it was alleged that the book was intended as a "cash in" on the successful RPG system Traveller (a US-based system that nonetheless used the British spelling rather than the American English variant). Steve Jackson has stated in interviews that Traveller was one of his favourite role-playing games. Later Puffin Dragon Cover Format editions of the book carry the following on the copyright page:

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TRAVELLER is a registered trademark of Game Designer's Workshop Inc.This book is not part of the Traveller series

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Interestingly, the book has no "Background" section, moving straight from the instruction of gameplay to the opening paragraph.